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Sundance Festival breakthroughs of 2024: Here are 14 new films to look forward to
The festival returned for rousing in-person premieres, panels, and commemorative screenings of past Sundance breakouts including Napoleon Dynamite and Mississippi Masala.
Maya Dehlin/2023 Sundance Institute / Pho
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Maya Dehlin/2023 Sundance Institute / Pho
The Sundance Film Festival celebrated its 40th anniversary this year and the vibes in Park City, Utah were understandably nostalgic – sprinkled throughout the 10-day event were special screenings of past Sundance breakouts, including Mississippi Masala, Napoleon Dynamite, and Pariah.
But first and foremost, the fest was all about premiering a generous slate of new films by both emerging and established filmmakers, and the options were vast. I was in attendance for much of the festival and had the chance to sample just over 20 features in-person and online, stories ranging from intimate family dramas to bold political statements to charming coming-of-age comedies.
The festival concludes Sunday, but the awards were announced on Friday; among the big winners were the debut feature film In the Summers by Alessandra Lacorazza about the volatile relationship between a father and his daughters which won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize and the Ukraine war documentary Porcelain War which won the parallel U.S. Grand Jury documentary prize.
Some films arrived at the festival with distribution deals firmly in place, but at the time of writing, many deals and potential distribution dates are still being worked out. As is the case every year, the buzz around certain films means we all will be seeing those in streaming or theatrical form at some undetermined point in the future.
Here are some of my favorites from this year.
What the …?
A still from Presence by Steven Soderbergh.
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A still from Presence by Steven Soderbergh.
Sundance Institute
There’s usually at least one movie at Sundance every year that makes you go, What the hell did I just watch??? This year, I saw two: Steven Soderbergh’s immersive ghost tale Presence and Aaron Schimberg’s agitating psychological drama A Different Man.
Soderbergh, ever the experimental filmmaker, collaborated with screenwriter David Koepp to craft the story of a haunted house told entirely from the ghost’s point of view after a new family – which has recently been rocked by tragedy – moves in. (Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan play the parents, newcomers Callina Liang and Eddy Maday are their bickering children.) The less you know of the details going in, the better. But what can be said for sure is that it’s an experience unlike any other, putting the viewer in the discomfiting position of watching this family’s dramas (and traumas) play out unfiltered. The technical feats Soderbergh pulls off with the camera and editing will be studied for years to come, but the narrative themes and storytelling choices demand equal dissection. Following its Sundance premiere, Presence sold to distributor Neon.
Schimberg’s movie is even weirder, and to be honest, I’m still not sure whether I think it’s brilliant or much ado amounting to … not much. But I’m still thinking about it days later, and it renders one of Sebastian Stan’s best performances to date. He plays Edward, an aspiring actor limited by a genetic facial mutation; after he undergoes reconstructive surgery to alter his appearance, he’s confronted with the consequence of this drastic decision in the form of Oswald (Adam Pearson), a jovial, beloved man who has the same medical condition Edward once had. (In real life, Pearson has neurofibromatosis.) It’s brutal, unsettling, and a lot. A Different Man came to the festival with a distribution deal already in place with A24, so expect to be baffled by it soon enough.
Familial pangs
André Holland and Andra Day appear in Exhibiting Forgiveness by Titus Kaphar.
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André Holland and Andra Day appear in Exhibiting Forgiveness by Titus Kaphar.
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Some of the biggest hits to come out of Sundance tend to be emotional family dramas (see Little Miss Sunshine, CODA). One of my favorites this year is Exhibiting Forgiveness, the feature debut of artist Titus Kaphar, starring André Holland as Tarrell, an acclaimed painter who harbors some unresolved childhood trauma. When his father La’Ron (John Earl Jelks) suddenly reappears in his life, Tarrell’s finally forced to deal with years’ worth of accumulated rage and hurt. What starts off feeling like your standard-issue indie melodrama ultimately emerges as something much deeper, more fascinating, and refreshingly unconventional. Holland and Jelks are excellent here, buoyed by strong supporting performances from Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Andra Day.
A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg’s second feature behind the camera, was also a pleasant surprise; he and Kieran Culkin play estranged cousins who embark on a Holocaust tour in Poland in the wake of the death of their grandmother. It strikes the right balance of darkness, levity, and grief – the awkward dynamics within the tour group are especially notable – and Culkin is pretty perfect playing a live wire type, who’s somehow both a compassionate empath and terribly uncouth. A Real Pain left the fest with a reported $10 million Searchlight deal.
And then there’s Brief History of a Family, the feature debut of Jianjie Lin, which engages in suspenseful, thoughtful ways with the ramifications of China’s one-child policy. In it, a middle-class family of three is thrown for a loop when the son’s new friend slowly becomes an integral part of the household. Secrets, lies, envy, and unrealized yearnings unravel in this moody thriller, which is being distributed by Films Boutique.
Fight the power (or try to, anyway)
A still from Girls State by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine.
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A still from Girls State by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine.
Sundance Institute/Apple
Stories about individuals contending with oppression were all over the festival this year, and quite a few stuck out for me. Girls State, a sort-of sequel to the 2020 Sundance hit documentary (and Grand Jury Prize-winner) Boys State, follows teen girls in Missouri who are participating in the annual week-long exercise of building their own democratic government. A couple of unique factors make Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine’s film, which is coming to Apple TV+ in April, notable: For one, its filming just so happened to coincide with the leak of the draft of the Supreme Court’s majority opinion on the right to abortion. It also depicts the first time both Boys and Girls State were hosted on the same campus – which makes the gender disparities between the two organizations impossible for the girls to ignore.
Another doc, Jazmin Renée Jones’ Seeking Mavis Beacon, is part investigation and part character study. Alongside Gen Z video artist Olivia McKayla Ross, Jones attempts to find Renée L’Espérance, the Black model who served as the face of the ’80s computer program Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. The film asks complex questions about how Blackness is used and distorted through technology, as well as what it means to dance around ethical boundaries while excavating history.
And a couple from the other side of the world: Kneecap, a loosely autobiographical origin story of the Irish hip-hop group Kneecap, bursts with verve, bite, and righteous rage that calls to mind early Spike Lee. (They insist on speaking and rapping in Irish to preserve the dying language, and in defiance of Britain.) The dynamic trio – Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí – play versions of themselves alongside Michael Fassbender as Bap’s revolutionary dad.
Then there’s Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Johan Grimonprez’s audacious and musical documentary deconstructing the confluence of events and political collusion that led to the assassination of Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba. This includes how prominent Black jazz artists were deployed by the U.S. as ambassadors to unwittingly distract from the country’s nefarious behind-the-scenes dealings. The filmmaker’s stylistic approach is riveting, wielding the rhythmic language of Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Max Roach, and other jazz greats alongside the callous recounting of gleeful mercenaries and world leaders. Grimonprez and his editor Rik Chaubet also pull abundantly from an array of texts, archival footage and interviews, playing liberally with sound and imagery. There’s so much information to take in, but to their credit, it never becomes so overwhelming as to lose focus.
Adolescence is hard
Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza appear in My Old Ass by Megan Park.
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Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza appear in My Old Ass by Megan Park.
Shane Mahood/Sundance Institute
Another staple of Sundance is the quirky coming-of-age movie, and My Old Ass and Dìdi deliver plenty of humor and heart.
The former is a high-concept comedy about Elliott, a queer Canadian teen (the winsome Maisy Stella) who can’t wait to leave her family’s cranberry farm behind for college. One night, she and her best friends decide to experiment with mushrooms in the woods, and during her psychedelic trip she meets her older self, played by the always wonderful Aubrey Plaza. Filmmaker Megan Park’s second feature is just weird and charming enough to work as an ode to the sweet dumbness of youth and the sage wisdom of age. It was purchased at the festival for a reported $15 million by Amazon MGM for a theatrical release followed by an eventual streaming debut on Amazon Prime.
The latter, directed by Sean Wang, takes us back to 2008 – AOL Instant messenger, the early days of Facebook, the waning days of Myspace – through the eyes of Dìdi, aka Chris (Izaac Wang), a 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy. It’s set during the summer before he transitions to high school, and as one might expect, it’s both cringey and relatable in how it depicts that awkward period where friendships are tested, hormones rage, and all parents do is nag, nag, nag (or so we kids think). It’s familiar territory, but the performances and attention to period-specific detail (especially as it pertains to the teen lingo) make for a great watch.
Music is healing
Luther Vandross appears in Luther: Never Too Much by Dawn Porter.
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Luther Vandross appears in Luther: Never Too Much by Dawn Porter.
Matthew Rolston/Sundance Institute
Finally, two music documentaries tapped into the emotional power of some of our greatest pop icons.
Dawn Porter’s Luther: Never Too Much is a celebration of the legendary singer Luther Vandross, chronicling his early career as a member of the group Listen My Brother to his final commercially successful comeback with Dance with My Father before his death at the age of 54. There’s lots of great archival footage here, including of Vandross working on musical arrangements for David Bowie’s “Fascination.” Many of Vandross’ collaborators, including Dionne Warwick and Richard Marx, sing his praises and – to an extent – discuss his public struggles with his ever-fluctuating weight and speculation around his sexuality. The doc sadly doesn’t go too deep on the latter issue for reasons that are explained through his close friends, only partly satisfyingly; nevertheless, by the end of the film it’s impossible not to be moved, quite possibly to tears.
A still from The Greatest Night in Pop by Bao Nguyen.
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A still from The Greatest Night in Pop by Bao Nguyen.
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Overlapping a little with the era of Vandross is Bao Nguyen’s The Greatest Night in Pop, which drops on Netflix quite soon – Jan. 29. The “greatest night” in question is the herculean undertaking of the star-studded recording of “We Are the World,” in the hours immediately following the 1985 American Music Awards. As far as Netflix docs go, this is one of the more entertaining ones; Lionel Richie is an executive producer and he’s all over it, telling funny stories about writing the song with Michael Jackson as well as the pressure to deflate all the competing egos in the room that evening.
Does it treat this charity single as if it was the second coming of Jesus? Kind of! Are there some noticeably absent talking heads? Yup! (No Stevie, Diana, or Quincy, though we do get lots of Kenny Loggins soundbites.) Do we ever find out what the heck Dan Aykroyd was doing there? Not really! No matter – this is a breezy, thoroughly enjoyable nostalgia trip.
Author Julia Elliott won for her short story collection Hellions.
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Forrest Clonts/Tin House
Writer Julia Elliott has won this year’s Carol Shields Prize for Fiction for her short story collection Hellions. The award honors work by women and nonbinary authors in the U.S. and Canada.
Elliott, who also authored the novel The New and Improved Romie Futch and the short story collection The Wilds, is known for blending elements of Southern gothic horror, surrealism and fairy tale. Hellions, published in 2025, includes stories set against backdrops like a plague-stricken medieval convent, a feminist art colony, and small Southern towns.
“This eerie, eclectic, genre-leaping collection takes no half-measures; every sentence of Hellions crackles or crawls,” wrote the prize jury in a statement. “Here, human folly moves against a backdrop of horror and magic … But for all its wildness, there is tremendous control.”
The prize, named after a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, awards $150,000 to one winner each year. Novels, short story collections, and graphic novels by women and nonbinary authors are eligible.
This year’s finalists included Quiara Alegría Hudes (The White Hot), Lee Lai (Cannon), Megha Majumdar (A Guardian and a Thief), and Sonya Walger (Lion). They will each receive $12,500.
The Carol Shields Prize went to writer Canisia Lubrin in 2025.
You can listen to actor Donna Lynne Champlin read Elliott’s story “Hellion” on the Death, Sex & Money podcast here.
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By Helen Shaw, Vanessa Friedman, Léo Hamelin, Laura Salaberry and Sutton Raphael
June 2, 2026
At around 1 in the morning at the Sassafras Saloon in Hollywood, four masc lesbians in cowboy hats and chaps were dancing on top of the bar while bartenders attempted to continue making espresso martinis beneath them.
One performer crawled into the crowd and between the spread legs of an audience member, licking the air between their thighs. Another wrapped a belt around their girlfriend’s neck while thrusting against her to Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name.” The ravenous audience, almost entirely women, fluttered dollar bills all around, while easily filling the saloon’s 300-person capacity.
Across Los Angeles, countless strip clubs and revue shows were unfolding at that same hour, though none quite like this and likely few provoking this level of frenzy. The night had all the riotous energy of a scene from “Coyote Ugly,” with the choreographed masculinity of “Magic Mike.” Playing on the latter’s name, this was the doing of Magic Mascs, an all-masc lesbian and translesbian revue, by sapphics for sapphics.
Skye Valentinez, from left, Alexa Legend, Daddii Syd and King Captain are members of Magic Mascs, an all-masc lesbian and translesbian collective, that started in February.
“Our idea was to give lesbians what men get all the time at a strip club, but instead of just sitting around and singing ‘Pink Pony Club,’ actually going wild,” said group founder Daddii Syd, a.k.a. Syd Latimore.
The performers, self-described “daddies” — Daddii Syd, Alexa Legend, Skye Valentinez and King Captain — formed Magic Mascs in February. The performance at the Saloon was their third overall, but the group has already become an institution within lesbian nightlife in Los Angeles. They will make their debut during a Pride Month performance on Friday at Womxn Pride’s rooftop party in downtown L.A.
The members come from professional dance backgrounds. King Captain entered dance school at age 12 and taught dance for nearly a decade. Daddii Syd has danced since childhood. Alexa Legend spent years go-go dancing across clubs in the city before joining the troupe. Skye Valentinez, the baby of the group — cherub-faced, smiling through braces — is the newest to performing, though she steps into it naturally, exhibiting the same living, breathing caricature of masculinity as the rest of them.
“No one’s trying to be cisgender,” King Captain makes clear. “We’re not trying to be the kind of men who are born into and fed by patriarchy,” Daddii Syd added. “We’re redefining masculinity.”
King Captain gets their underwear stuffed with dollar bills from the crowd.
Magic Mascs’ success follows a broader trend of lesbians confidently stepping into masculinity before hungry eyes. In the past year, performative masc competitions have appeared across the country, with lesbians — hair slicked back and carabiners dangling from their Carhartt jeans — showing off in front of leering crowds. Magic Mascs feels like a more professionalized version of that phenomenon, less tongue-in-cheek — just tongue.
“We always knew there was a huge hunger for this,” Daddii Syd said.
Their first performance, in San Diego, sold out fast.
“I knew right away we were onto something special,” Daddii Syd said.
Videos of the troupe traveled far across sapphics’ algorithms, especially clips of King Captain, whose devoted fan base — known collectively as “The Castle” — make arduous trips just to see them in the flesh. One fan drove more than 20 hours from Dallas to San Diego to see Magic Mascs. Another sent an edible fruit bouquet from Australia.
Backstage, every gesture from the troupe was ultra-confident. Captain, wearing briefs stuffed with a sock full of rice, talked to me with a leg cocked on the footrest of my stool. Daddii Syd, Alexa Legend and Skye Valentinez stood pelvis-forward, hands behind their heads, flexing ropey muscles. They loved the camera, eyeing it like prey while tipping the brims of their cowboy hats. (“You guys are like the modern-day Beatles,” our photographer said.)
King Captain gets the Hollywood crowd into a frenzy during a recent show.
Everything in the show revolved around their hips. The performers rolled and glided before delivering sudden, mechanical thrusts powerful enough to rattle nearby glasses. Their bodies were taut with effort and exaggerated lust. Daddii Syd performed with her girlfriend Jamie in matching plaid, not leaving much to the imagination as they licked whipped cream off each other.
Alexa Legend, who described herself as shy offstage, eventually stripped down to nipple pasties and a cowboy hat, firing confetti from her crotch into the crowd. King Captain swerved their hips like a powerful mechanical bull. “Oh, Captain, my captain,” someone in the crowd said, hand pressed dramatically to her forehead.
They paid particular attention to a woman in a wheelchair in the crowd — typical of their performances — asking if they could sit on the wheelchair. They received keen consent. “That was, um, very nice,” she told me after, still a little lost for words.
“We’re huge on consent,” Daddii Syd said. At the start of the show, they told the crowd to cross their arms in a Wakanda Forever pose if they didn’t wish to be touched. They checked in constantly while moving through the crowd, leaning close to ask questions like, “Is this OK?” and “Anywhere you don’t like to be touched?”
Captain learned these habits through work in intimacy coordination and under the mentorship of Tonia Sina, among the first professional intimacy coordinators in Hollywood. That ethos of care extended beyond their interactions with the audience and into the way they interacted with one another offstage.
“We want everyone in the crowd to feel gorgeous,” King Captain said before the recent show at Sassafras Saloon in Hollywood.
King Captain, left, and Lauren Henson, a stage kitten for the Magic Mascs, perform together on the bar.
Forming a sanctuary for themselves was just as important to the troupe as emboldening others’ desire. “It’s hard to find other masc friends,” Daddii Syd said. “Everybody’s weirdly competitive and trying to sabotage each other.” King Captain agreed, asking: “Why can’t we all be daddies at the same time?”
Daddii Syd and King Captain, who are both in their 30s, had little butch representation or friendship growing up and they have now become something like father figures to Alexa Legend and Skye Valentinez, who are in their 20s.
“We have to protect each other,” King Captain said. “We have to look out for each other.”
Daddii Syd put her arm around Skye Valentinez and said: “Look at this beautiful baby we have.”
That tenderness carried straight into the night. There was a striking seriousness to the whole performance, which spanned from just past 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Unlike a bachelorette party or the typical male revue, there was no giggling in the room, and no wink of camp from the performers. Here was a rare claim to unabashed public sapphic desire; it was given the scale and seriousness routinely afforded to heterosexual display, like the gleeful bravado of a man striding into Hooters.
By the end of the night at Sassafras Saloon, the performers had stripped down nearly to nothing, pouring water over themselves while the audience roared. The atmosphere felt like one of collective release, a recognition that masculinity and desire don’t belong only to men — that a group of four masc lesbians can be horny, inspire horniness and ultimately stir a hysteria that once greeted Channing Tatum or even the Beatles.
It was the magnitude of the response that night at the Saloon, as on every other night they’ve performed, that’s inspiring their next moves: total domination in sum. The troupe is already planning a national tour through Florida, Dallas and Sacramento, though Daddii Syd’s ambitions extend much further.
“The idea,” she told me, “is to go global. Like a boy band.”
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